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ENTS 
y the Austrian Research 
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Niederösterreichischen 
i, Abteilung Vermessung 
OBSERVING STRESS OF ARTIFICIAL NIGHT LIGHTING ON MARINE 
ECOSYSTEMS - A REMOTE SENSING APPLICATION STUDY 
C. Aubrecht 3, *, C.D. Elvidge b , D. Ziskin b,c , P. Rodrigues d , A. Gil d 
a AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, 
Donau-City-Str. 1, A-1220 Vienna, Austria - christoph.aubrecht@ait.ac.at 
b National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, National Geophysical Data Center, 
E/GC 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado USA 80305-3328 - chris.elvidge@noaa.gov 
c Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, 
216 UCB, Boulder, Colorado USA 80309-0216 - daniel.ziskin@noaa.gov 
d University of the Azores, Department of Biology, 
Apartado 1422, 9501-801 Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores, Portugal - (pedrorodrigues, arturgil)@uac.pt 
KEY WORDS: Ecosystem, Marine, Impact Analysis, Monitoring, Satellite 
ABSTRACT: 
Satellite based observation of nocturnal lighting opens up a variety of research and application fields dealing with impacts of light on 
the environment. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Geophysical Data Center (NOAA-NGDC) 
processes and archives nighttime lights data acquired by the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) 
Operational Linescan System (OLS). Initially designed to detect moonlit clouds this sensor is equipped with a photomultiplier tube 
intensifying the visible band signal at night and enabling the detection of lights present at the surface of the earth. It thus provides 
up-to-date information on the location and impact zone of oil and gas producing facilities, heavily lit fishing boats and the artificial 
night sky brightness that can extend many kilometers out from urban settlements. Artificial night lighting represents a direct threat to 
marine ecosystems and is an excellent proxy measure for indirect impacts such as human associated chronic water pollution. A 
growing body of evidence indicates that artificial sky brightness is an important stressor for many marine organisms, including birds 
and fish. In this paper we present selected ‘eco-applications’ of nighttime Earth Observation including assessment of light pollution 
impact on coral reefs and sea turtles. Coral reefs are highly photosensitive, i.e. many species synchronize their spawning through 
detection of low light intensity from moonlight and reef structure is strongly influenced by illumination. Settlements and other 
artificial sources of lighting provide illumination brighter than the full moon, especially at shorter wavelengths. Seabirds are 
intimately linked with the light features of their environments since they are noctumally active. On the Azores Islands a campaign 
was initiated reporting light-induced falls of marine birds. Results will be presented of taking these available in situ data as reference 
for analyzing spatial correlations of altered environmental conditions and actual impact cases. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
A consequence of the explosive expansion of human 
civilization has been the global loss of biodiversity and changes 
to life-sustaining geophysical processes on Earth. The footprint 
of human occupation is uniquely visible from space in the form 
of artificial night lighting, ranging from the burning of the 
rainforest to massive offshore fisheries to omnipresent lights of 
settlements and connecting road networks. The systematic 
global mapping of nighttime lights from space opens up a 
variety of research and application fields dealing with human 
impacts on the environment. Artificial night lighting represents 
a direct threat to marine ecosystems and is an excellent proxy 
measure for indirect impacts such as human associated chronic 
water pollution. A growing body of evidence indicates that 
artificial sky brightness is an important stressor for many marine 
organisms, including birds and fish. Increasing research 
activities on assessing ecological consequences of artificial 
night lighting (‘ecological light pollution‘) in recent years have 
attracted the attention of both scientists and journalists 
(Longcore & Rich, 2004; Rich & Longcore, 2006; Hotz, 2008). 
2. NIGHTTIME EARTH OBSERVATION 
Satellite based observation of nocturnal lighting opens up a 
variety of research and application fields dealing with impacts 
of light on the environment. The National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration’s National Geophysical Data 
Center (NOAA-NGDC) processes and archives nighttime lights 
data acquired by the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological 
Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System 
(OLS). This sensor was initially designed for cloud monitoring 
using a pair of visible and thermal spectral bands. With the 
DMSP satellites flying in sun-synchronous, low altitude polar 
orbits and with a swath width of 3,000 km each OLS collects a 
complete set of imagery of the earth twice a day. At night a 
photomultiplier tube (PMT) intensifies the visible band signal 
in order to enable the detection of moonlit clouds, whereas the 
boost in gain allows the observation of lights present at the 
surface of the Earth. Most lights can be linked to human 
settlements (Elvidge et al., 1997) and ephemeral fires (Elvidge 
et al., 2001a), but also gas flares and offshore platforms as well 
as heavily lit fishing boats can be identified. 
* Corresponding author.